Egypt’s MoneyHash Secures New Financial Backing for Its Payment Solutions Expansion

Egyptian fintech firm MoneyHash has successfully secured additional funding from Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of GitHub and former CEO, as part of an undisclosed seed funding round. This investment signifies Preston-Werner’s inaugural foray into the Middle East market and his second venture into the African market. The seed financing round is anticipated to conclude in the forthcoming weeks.

MoneyHash, established in late 2020 by Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid, and Anisha Sekar, offers companies the opportunity to tailor a payment infrastructure that precisely aligns with their unique requirements. Tom Preston-Werner, renowned for his significant contributions to the technology landscape, particularly as the founder of GitHub, a leading software platform that transformed developers’ collaborative capabilities in application development, has turned his attention toward early-stage startups. His objective is to assist them in devising solutions that address tangible real-world challenges.

Moneyhash
MoneyHash

Having previously invested in Stripe, Preston-Werner possesses a keen interest in technology infrastructure products, with a specific focus on tools and development environments. His investment in MoneyHash underscores his unwavering belief in the importance of product quality and its capacity to tackle a pivotal issue for customers across emerging markets.

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“I was profoundly impressed by the technical excellence and product vision exhibited by MoneyHash, as well as the founders’ profound comprehension of the payment landscape in Africa and the Middle East,” he stated. “This region is experiencing rapid growth, and it is only natural to invest in infrastructure products crafted by exceptional teams. Nader and his team have attracted a remarkable pool of tech talent, and I am thrilled to embark on this journey with them.”

Tom Preston-Werner, now an investor in MoneyHash, brings his technical prowess and innovative mindset to drive the company’s product development forward. Co-founder Mustafa Eid expressed enthusiasm regarding Preston-Werner’s involvement, citing his interest in both investing and actively participating in their journey as a testament to the team’s dedication and product-oriented approach over the past few years.

MoneyHash has taken on the substantial challenge of addressing a prevalent issue in the region — over 30% of digital payments experience failure due to the fragmented and intricate payment ecosystem prevalent in the Middle East and Africa. This complexity incurs significant costs for merchants throughout the region. With the digital payments market projected to exceed $150 billion by year-end, MoneyHash’s fully integrated suite of products offers businesses the means to incorporate multiple payment processors and methods, optimize payment workflows and recurring revenue, mitigate fraud and payment failures, streamline reconciliation procedures, and efficiently manage diverse payment requirements.

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Their overarching mission revolves around empowering medium to large enterprises in emerging markets. MoneyHash simplifies the complexities associated with payment infrastructure, workflows, and operations, equipping these businesses with a competitive edge to foster growth and expand their customer bases.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard

Why Investors Backed Egyptian Fintech API Startup MoneyHash At Pre-seed

MoneyHash, an Egyptian fintech startup that uses a universal API and a unified checkout experience to help businesses across Africa and the Middle East consolidate and grow their payments and financial tech stack, has raised a six-figure pre-seed round to expand its services across the region. COTU Ventures, a venture capital firm based in the United Arab Emirates, led the round, which also included the Ventures Platform, Kepple Africa Ventures, and angel investors.

Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash.
Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash.

“MEA is one of the fastest growing emerging markets with a rapidly evolving payment and fintech scene. As many companies in the region and abroad plan their expansion across the region, they are faced with a devastating technical and operational hassle: building a separate connection with each service provider while providing a unified experience for their customers. This results in a complicated tech stack wasting valuable resources with increased vulnerabilities to errors, fraud, and technical debt. MoneyHash’s technology abstracts the complexities of this fragmented market and allow businesses to scale and grow with a complete focus on their product, and without compromising security and efficiency,” said Nader Abdelrazik, co-founder and CEO of MoneyHash.

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Why The Investors Invested

“It’s rare to find such a well-rounded and complete team with deep domain experience and technical prowess so early in a company’s life. We’re very excited to back Nader, Anisha and Mustafa, as they look to tackle a problem that suits a fragmented region like the Middle East. The clarity with which they articulated their vision and strategy, and the chemistry we felt from the start, convinced us to support them in kick starting their plans to build a payments super API for the region and beyond. We are grateful they chose us as partners and are looking forward to what’s ahead,” said Amir Farha, Managing Partner of COTU Ventures.

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Kola Aina, founding partner at Ventures Platform also noted: 

“We are excited to back the MoneyHash team. The team’s vision is compelling, and the product enables companies to scale their products and services across Africa and the Middle east with minimal friction. They are essentially powering the growth and expansion of startups and enterprise across the region.”

A Look At What The Startup Does

The three co-founders of MoneyHash, Nader Abdelrazik, Mustafa Eid, and Anisha Sekar, formed the company in late 2020. They have over 30 years of combined expertise and have worked for 11 businesses, as well as a long list of businesses and educational institutions, including Microsoft, UpWork, NerdWallet, UC Berkeley, SigFig, and Brown University.

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The company offers a unified checkout experience based on a secure Super-API that combines payment and financial solutions via a single interface and a consolidated dashboard that consolidates technical infrastructure and centralizes data and operational reporting.

“We are crafting a comprehensive revenue solution built for flexibility and scaling. With a unified checkout experience powered by a single API integration, businesses throughout MEA can instantly access the providers and products they need to grow. We increase speed to market and save weeks of effort upfront, and with a complete view of the revenue stack, we provide insights, automations, and smart routing to save time and money in the long term. Our mission is to build an efficient, secure, comprehensive solution that helps — rather than hinders — growing businesses.” said Anisha Sekar, co-founder and CPO of MoneyHash.

MoneyHash is now in private beta, with intentions to launch in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates soon. By 2022, the business hopes to be fully functioning in a number of African and Middle Eastern nations.

MoneyHash API MoneyHash API MoneyHash API

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning write